White House says it has granted 14 ethics waivers to staff

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicerclaims that "a small group of people know exactly" what Donald Trumpmeant when the President posted a seemingly unintelligible tweet Wednesday.

On one hand, Trump communicating directly with the media is likely to mean fewer flubs in communicating the president's positions, Hagle said. He was also responsible for overseeing the message strategy of the White House.

He chafes at reports suggesting Trump is planning to shake up the communications team because he isn't satisfied with Spicer's performance.

"We are focused on the President's agenda", Spicer said.

Trump administration officials would not say what type of mobile phone the U.S. president was using or describe any security upgrades it might include.

The president seemed to make a joke about the incident several hours later, tweeting: "Who can figure out the true meaning of "covfefe"???"

"The president and a small group of people know exactly what he meant", Spicer told reporters.

When Spicer accused the media of propagating fake and false stories during Tuesday's briefing, he provided a single inaccurate tweet about a minor story as evidence then refused to offer more examples.

Trump tweeted just after midnight Eastern time on Wednesday: "Despite the constant negative press covfefe".

Fusion was one of the first on the case, quoting Trump's tweet and adding a meta twist: "It's now been 15 minutes and the President still hasn't deleted this tweet".

"What we ended up with was a military-grade, encrypted phone that had the microphone ripped out", said Mr McLaughlin, who thinks the White House communications office has prevailed upon Mr Trump to use some kind of phone with enhanced security.

However, Trump has privately and publicly pinned much of the blame for his administration's woes on the communications effort.